Starting this
section 4-26-11 - I know the whole website is filled with dc on Shunryu
Suzuki, but this section will be a place to gather personal recollections
and notes link to whatever seems relevant. - dc

8-04-13 - Remember standing with Kobun Chino in 68 at Tassajara during the
great visit - looking at the visitors. He pointed to Shunryu Suzuki and
said that here's an example of a great Soto teacher. He indicated Hakuun
Yasutani and said that there's an example of a great Rinzai teacher He was
really Soto but had that fierce Rinzati style and taught with koans. He
didn't say "great" either. He used a word or phrase to mean matured, well
cultivated. Can't quite get it. Anyway, then he pointed to Nakagawa Soen
and said, "And there - ahhh - too much personality." More on this later.

8-05-13 - Met a guy in Crestone, CO, at Elephant Cloud the former great
tea shop turned produce outlet which will revert to a great tea shop when
Benjamin and his mate forget her name get the new place ready. - This
story now filed in Dubious.

8-07-13 - Thanks to John Waggoner for this generous offer relating to
the post of 8-05-13: I never met Shunryu Suzuki, so if you need someone
to come up with spurious stories about him to archive on Cuke just let me
know.

Thanks to Al Tribe for alerting cuke to another faux Suzuki quote:
Enlightenment is an accident; Practice makes us accident prone. This
was printed in the publication of an American Zen group. It had been found
so attributed on the Internet I learned. I wrote the publication that I
thought it was either Kornfield or Aitken. While in Santa Fe, visited with
ZC alum and cuke contributor Andrew Main who was relaying his long history
with Robert Aitken whom he'd met while in high school. Aitken then got a
job with the school - teacher or principal - and Andrew and he had a
relationship that lasted until Aitken's death in 2010. Andrew happened to
mention that enlightenment statement of Aitken's and when I told him that
it had recently been attributed to Suzuki he said that no, it was
definitely Aitken. The next evening I had dinner with Joan Halifax at
Upaya and told her I'd nailed the source of that quote down to my
satisfaction and she was pleased to see this matter be resolved. - dc

11-30-14
- Click on thumbnail to enlarge

Back side o
DC lay rakusu with kanji written by Suzuki received at the lay
ordination at SFZC, August 25, 1970 for a number of people - like 20 or
more. Reading from the right is the robe chant, then the date, gotta ask
about the next line, then his name Zenshin Shunryu some title, and mine
Kisan Zenyu koji (lay person).
Robe
chant on this page of short verses from the Austin ZC.

The first lay ordination was 1962 for about 13 students. Suzuki was a little
discouraged with the follow-up on ordinations and waited a while to do
more. There was a kids lay ordination in the summer of 1970 at Tassajara
and this one in August. There was a third in 1971 for a bunch. In
time will get these details more nailed down including priest ordinations
- mine Nov. 1971. - dc

12-06-14 - Shunryu Suzuki is sometimes quoted
as saying that Japanese Zen had grown moss on its branches. I heard
this quote at an event in 2009 centering on the 50th anniversary of
Suzuki's coming to America. The speaker then used Suzuki's most quoted
phrase, beginner's mind, saying that that's what he found here, that's
what we've got. There were Japanese priests in the audience and I was
sitting next to a Japanese woman, Yoshi of Yoshi's in Oakland. I was
embarrassed about this comparison. It was certainly not coming from
beginner's mind. Not saying that both references weren't true to some
extent. Zen priests traditionally forever have said it's all gone bad,
gotten corrupt, and let's get back to basics etc. All religious
institutions, all institutions, have to continuously be revitalized. He
clearly thought that an East West relationship would benefit each and was
just doing his bit to nudge it toward that. I don't really think he had
any particular idea of how this would come about in Japan and don't
believe he thought his students were going to go set the Japanese straight
overnight. One can find reports of him saying things like that but I'd say
they should be taken about as literally as telling an actor to break a
leg. Suzuki had a strong sense of everything always evolving and basically
thought the best way to encourage things to evolve for the better was to
just be there practicing Zen without any plan. His grand scheme was no
plan at all. Like introducing a couple of unhappy people to each other and
hoping for the best. But he had confidence in people and thought that
maybe we could help each other out. The main thrust of what he was doing
was bringing what he'd learned in Japan to America, not vice versa. I'd
say that the beginner's mind thing was to encourage us more than to praise
and I bet he knew we'd each tend to loose it as soon as we got it. We've
had some poker players at Zen Center, Niels Holm was one. I do not gamble,
but I've learned from them that a new person at the poker table often
beats all the experienced people - at first. The point of beginner's mind
is to not let it be beginner's luck. Mainly I'd say that Suzuki thought we
had a heck of a lot more to learn from them than they do from us but that
the combination was promising for both. I remember him giving a strict
lecture to us at Tassajara, saying that we have many good points but that
our approach to practice tends to be goal oriented and competitive. He
said it might be the American way but that there's a better way, the
Japanese way. When I hear American Zen compared favorably to Japanese Zen
by someone quoting Suzuki, I remember that lecture.

12-07-14 - As a new and impressionable student,
in the fall of 1966 I heard Suzuki-roshi give a lecture at Sokoji in which
he said that once the eyes of Buddhism are on you, you can't get away
from them. This was a talk that struck a strange cord in me since it so
perfectly paralleled the school song of the University of Texas,
The Eyes of Texas,
sung to the tune of I've Been Working on the Railroad.

Many more Texans can sing this song than the less catchy state song,
Texas Our Texas.
A lot of Texans think it
is
the state song. I grew up in Texas being brainwashed by this song among
other insidious messages. The Eyes of Texas could be used to ramp up the
paranoia of a horror movie. It is
quite likely the last song President John Kennedy heard before he was
assassinated, sung by a group of innocent looking school children in my
home town of Fort Worth. [See
Wikepedia's extensive list of the song in films].

The eyes of Texas are upon you - all the livelong day.
The eyes of Texas are upon you - you cannot get away.
Do not think you can escape them - from night till early in the morn.
The eyes of Texas are upon you - till Gabriel blows his horn.

Gabriel blows his horn, incidentally, at the end of the world according
to Biblical lore.

So I'd escaped the clutches of Texas and had found refuge in the San
Francisco Zen Center. And one of the first lectures that I heard the Zen
master of this Zen temple give was about how once the eyes of Buddhism are
on you, you cannot escape them. He laughed and laughed and repeated it and
rephrased it and went on but would return to that theme. I turned my head
to look for an exit. But it was too late. It fit perfectly in the old
mold. Something in me clicked. I sat up straighter, eyes glazed, doubts
vanished, and I nodded smiling, awaiting this small oriental man's next
command.

12-10-14 - Reading through the verbatim and
early transcripts of Shunryu Suzuki lectures (available onshunryusuzuki.com), just passed
the quarter mark. Try to do at least 1% of them a day. Reading slowly.
Getting to the end of 67. Making a lot of notes and placing indications in
code about where there are mistakes to fix, comments about his history,
about America and ZC history, noting important words for an index or to
add to Shinshu's index (See
Documents), teaching points,
key statements, names, etc. One thing I notice is I get a little
uncomfortable when he's talking about other sects. I always wonder about
what people in these other sects would say about his comments regarding
them - like Rinzai, Tendai, Shinshu, or Shingon. He's usually saying that
one isn't better than the other and non competitive statements but he'll
also make little generalizations that I wonder about. And I squirm a
little when he talks about early Buddhism and uses the term Hinayana
comparing it to Mahayana. He'd say that Zen is Hinayana practice with
Mahayana spirit and make other observations. That's sort of gone out of
use as Hinayana means small vehicle and Mahayana the big one and it's
strictly a Mahayana term. It reminds me of how I feel if I'm with an older
person in Texas who uses the term "colored people." They mean no harm and
Suzuki means no slight but I'd suggest don't try it at Spirit Rock or with
others practicing in the lineage of the Elders. I'm not sure what term is
best to use. Theravada Buddhism is used but they were just one group.
There are some suggested substitute terms
here in
this New World Encyclopedia article on "Hinayana."

12-12-14 - Shunryu Suzuki said you can't eat
and talk at the same time. Formal meals at Sokoji and later at
Tassajara and then Page St. were silent though there are less formal meals
that just start silent. Sometimes we'd find ourselves eating with Suzuki
outside the zendo and we'd all be silent and sitting up straight and he'd
ask someone a question and one could almost see the bubbles above people's
heads reading, "But I thought we weren't supposed to talk and eat at the
same time." He also didn't want us to eat and be uptight at the same time.

I'd been eating silently with Loring Palmer in 66 when I was living at his
house before I moved to Tassajara and now in 2014 Katrinka and I eat
pretty much in silence though we have no rule. She's a good cook. I want
to show respect for her food and want to enjoy it - maybe not in that
order. Once you start talking the
food is hardly noticed. To me each activity is best done separately. I
don't agree with the idea of a meal being a time for people like families to get
together and talk. How about get together and eat and then talk?

And food
scenes in movies are the worst unless they're about the food. In movies meals are
for drama - often being for announcements and arguments that would make everyone loose their
appetite, the food is props. People leave half or uneaten food, glasses of
wine hardly touched. I've worked in restaurants and much less food comes
back than in movie world - and very few people let booze go undrunk though
there are those few who do, mainly wealthy women who aren't really
drinkers. I remember when I'd wash dishes at Greens about once a night a
full or almost full glass of pricy Chardonnay would come to me. It would
not go to waste. Back to food. There are monastics that have scripture
read aloud while they're eating so they won't notice the food. Saint
Frances is said to have put ashes in his food. Thank goodness the Japanese
are such hedonists. It rubbed off on the Buddhists. They tend to want to
appreciate the world and the food. And talking while eating is to me a
little like adding ashes.

12-14-14 - Today's excerpt
from a Shunryu Suzuki lecture. Hint: It's at the point he realizes
how much it's boring his audience. Suzuki's lecturing on the Lotus Sutra
which he did three times in 68 and 69, a number of lectures each time. A
lot of it was him reading from the sutra which was full of hyperbolic
description and lists and he's explaining the meaning of terms and names
of Buddhas and so forth. It seriously bored almost everyone. In the fall
68 series, I went to him and urged him to stop. Offered alternatives like
having us read the sutra in study and then meeting with him to discuss it
so he didn't have to slowly read it to us. I was persistent but
unsuccessful.